


Physically Being

by Hopefullyhope



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Gen, Josh is Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 08:45:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7526128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopefullyhope/pseuds/Hopefullyhope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tyler's not sure when it hits him that Josh needs help. But now it's obvious he's falling and even his best friend didn't notice till now. And that's when he decides to send him a text.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Physically Being

Lately Tyler had been struggling. Some days it's really hard to get out of bed, but he does. Often, he finds it hard to stomach food, but he tries, and he regularly feels close to the breaking point, but Josh is always there for him, and when he's home, Jenna always makes him meals and guilts him into eating them. They've been on break for three weeks and it's been really relaxing, pulling Tyler out of his emotional funk. He concentrates on his wife and how wonderful she is and his love for her. He fixes things around their house, and calls his mom on the phone, and catches up with his siblings. He makes it about others, and that always helps.  
But there's a problem. In his own funk and his own healing, he kinda forgot about Josh. Yes, they text everyday since Josh is in LA and they can't hang out, but it's always funny stuff or quick phrases. A few times Josh asks how Tyler is feeling and Tyler answers. He didn't read them as warning signs, as a call for help. As a ‘please ask me how I'm doing. Please just give me the chance to lie.’ So Tyler never asked back, never even thought about it.  
So it comes as a little bit, or maybe a huge, surprise when it takes three weeks for Tyler to call him because he misses his voice. Because Jenna notices that he and Tyler haven't face timed, and even she starts to miss little Joshie. Or because Josh was supposed to come up to visit his parents and didn't make it, and his parents call Tyler concerned. 

Tyler's not sure when it hits him that josh needs help. Maybe it's the call from Josh’s parents. Or maybe it's when they talk on the phone and josh sounds like he hasn't slept at all in the past three week. Or maybe it's that he nervous laughs over the phone rather than really laughs. But Tyler thinks it's actually after. That night when he hangs up the phone, when he's turned off the lights and locked up the house, and he and Jenna and laying in bed together drifting off. Then it all comes together like a fancy shuffled deck of cards sliding into place. This is josh asking for help. These little signs, the reaching out to help Tyler, are him making it about others. But it's obvious he's falling and even his best friend didn't notice till now. And that's when he decides to send him a text. Careful not to wake Jenna, Tyler takes his phone and sends josh a message.  
TyJo to Spooky Jim: Are you okay?  
And it takes about 15 seconds to get a response. 

Spooky Jim to TyJo: No

He's calling josh in a matter of three seconds. It rings a few times before he hears Josh's groggy crying voice on the other end. “Hey”  
“Hey josh. What's going on?” Tyler starts calm. He knows Josh is hurting but he wants him to know its okay  
“Um. I don't know.” Laugh crying. Tyler laughs lightly back to him.  
“Okay.”  
“I don't know how to explain.”  
“It's okay. What are you feeling?” Tyler was sitting on the stairs of his house, looking out his glass door at the dark street.  
“I can't explain”  
Tyler didn't need him to. No amounts of words could allow Tyler to feel what Josh is feeling. But Tyler knew what it felt like to need someone, and for tonight he hoped that would be enough.  
“Touching,” Josh said after a long pause.  
“What?”  
“Sorry um I’m not sure what to say but touching seems like a start.”  
“Okay,” Tyler said encouragingly.  
“It's been so. So long since I've been touched. And like, when we're together you either distract me or I'm like, okay cool I got a hug from Ty today. Or he patted me on the back. God this sounds creepy.”  
“It's okay”  
“No I'm not saying what I mean. It's not a sexual thing, but people need to be touched. They're not meant to be alone. So when we are together you and I touch in like bro dude ways” he pauses to laugh, “and it's, well, it helps. With the lonely and the anxiousness.”  
“Mhm?”  
“But we've been on break and it's been bad. I feel like the only person who wants to touch me is my mom, and I love my mom but it just makes it worst. Cuz she's the. Never mind”  
“Josh, no, it's okay.”  
“I'm being dumb”  
“No, you're not being dumb, Josh please tell me.”  
Josh sighs heavily, like he's well and truly exhausted.  
“She has to love me. She's the only person who wants to be in contact with me, who reached out to me, but it's because she has to. I feel like I'm not worth anyone's time”  
Tyler is quite for a moment. He feels guilty and sad that his friend feels so neglected from something as simple as touching. He's not looking for sex or even cuddling, but he misses being touched. And Tyler is angry. He's angry that this has gone on so long that josh has begun to feel inadequate, like he isn't worthy of being touched.  
He’s been quite too long.  
“I'm sorry this is so dumb”  
“No Josh I was just thinking. Thinking that I wish I could hug you right now. And that Jenna could too. And I wish that I hadn't let you isolate yourself over the past three weeks.  
“You needed a break Tyler, we needed to be a part. I came to LA on my own so you could have time with Jenna.”  
“It doesn't matter Josh my mental state shouldn't come as a sacrifice to your own.”  
“It's all ‘should haves’, but thank you for being here tonight.”  
“Always.”  
“I'm gonna go try and sleep.”  
“Josh come here.”  
“Dude I'm in LA remember?”  
“No I mean like tomorrow catch a plane here. Your parents are worried. I'm worried”  
“Okay. I'll try”  
Tyler and Josh said their goodbyes and Tyler headed back to his resting wife. He slid into bed and Jenna curled into him in her sleep. Every night since he’d been home he had sought solace in these nights with his wife. She had brought him back from his dark places. And she’d done it all by physically being there. Josh had been alone for three weeks. No wonder he was hurting. And now he was still alone. As a final thought before drifting to sleep, Tyler sends Josh a text.  
TyJo to Spooky Jim: Call me for any reason  
And then he fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi Friends! Let me know what you think if you've got time. Keep Creating! and Stay alive.


End file.
